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It's an extra two-thirds of an f-stop, with all that comes with it:
Narrower depth of field (perhaps marginal in comparison to the f/1,8)
Brighter viewfinder; great in low-light situations
Might be the difference between getting the shot or not, also in low-light situations
Lenses tend to get sharper when stopped down. At f/1,8 the f/1,4 lens is stopped ...

Most standard because:
50mm on a full frame is said to give a natural field of view.
50mm is apparently an simple focal length to design
On a your crop sensor, it is 75e, while the 35mm is 52.5e. Thus, the 35mm lens will be closer to "normal"
Reasons why most photographers may choose the 50mm could be to use it for portraits on crop sensors. 75e is a ...

In practice, you're correct and it means that it's a fixed focal length lens.
Historically, the term "prime" derives from cine work, where it had a more literal meaning of the primary lens of a multi-lens system.
The concrete advantages are typically that they are much more compact, and have a much higher quality/cost ratio, as they're easier to engineer ...

It depends on your and the couple's expectations. No expectations? No problems.
As the main shooter in getting high quality shots? Very difficult. Without experience? Pretty much impossible. Though it depends highly on the venue and how it is orchestrated. Outside before and after shots, pose shots, etc. are no problem, but the ceremony and reception ...

Yes, absolutely.
The 50 f/1.8 is outstanding value for money providing a very wide max aperture for portraiture compared to other lenses in the same price bracket.
I have the 1.4, but borrowed a 50 f/1.8 when my lens was being repaired. Although it was 2/3 of a stop slower and lacked an ultrasonic focus motor, wide open it was sharp, and can produce ...

As of today there are 38 prime lenses with image stabilization. Almost half (16) of them are from Canon and 2 are Canon-mount Sigma (data from these search results at NeoCamera).
What you will notice is this is less common in the wide focal-length, with the only wide-angle stabilized lenses being Canon's 24mm, 28mm and 35mm, (all others below 100mm are ...

Broadly speaking wide aperture lenses are easier to design the longer the focal length. The reason that you don't see any 400mm f/1.4 lenses is due to manufacturing difficulties, e.g. keeping dispersion low while producing elements of the size required for such apertures. It's worth restating that the designation f/1.4 means that the size of the aperture ...

There's so many nice Pentax primes — why pick just one when you can collect a whole set? That's why we have Lens Buying Addiction, after all!
In seriousness, based on what you've said, I think the smc PENTAX DA 35mm F2.8 Macro Limited may be the place you should start. But, I've used quite a few Pentax primes, so let me give you the whole tour, as it were.
...

Many photographers (especially those with full frame sensors or 35mm film cameras) opt for a 50mm prime lens because it is considered 'normal', i.e. not wide-angle or telephoto. Because these lenses are so popular, they are also produced on a relatively large scale, which also makes them cheaper than other lenses of the same speed.
With that said, there is ...

The answer to your question depends on what you mean by "photograph a wedding". You can certainly get some beautiful photos at a wedding with that setup, but it would be almost impossible to photograph the wedding in the way most people would expect, a 50mm on a 350D is just not wide enough.
What some people don't realise is that there are couples who ...

Focal length is focal length, regardless of sensor size or whether the lens is a zoom lens. If you have tried your kit lens at 35mm and 50mm, then the framing will pretty much be the same with prime lenses of those focal lengths. Prime lenses will offer a couple things your zoom lens does not, however.
For one, they should offer better quality, as prime ...

Someone referred me once to Exposure Plot. This is a free Windows utility which is very simple. It shows you graphs of different parameters, one of them being focal-length.
If you already use image management application like Lightroom or Bibble Pro, then you can also usually see that data in the filter interface.
For Lightroom for example, you need to ...

The first question to ask yourself is Why do I need this prime lens? Is it because they are usually faster than zoom lenses? Is it because they are usually lighter and smaller than zoom lenses? Is it because I like changing lenses frequently (cause with prime you just have one focal length)? Is it because they are usually cheaper than zoom lenses? Or is it ...

I agree that you'll probably eventually want both (no one said that this is a cheap hobby!), but I'd go with the flash first.
It's easier to use quickly, and works well when you have multiple subjects not necessarily side-by-side — or when your kid won't stay within the in-focus area for for than a millisecond. With indoor lighting, even a wide-open fast ...

I'm not sure about with Nikon, but one of the biggest differences I see mentioned between the Canon 50mm 1.8 and 1.4 lenses is the build quality - plastic vs metal among other things. This is probably what accounts for most of the price difference.

A 200mm lens is in the category of lenses called "fixed focal length" or "prime", which cannot zoom in and out. The more common lens type is the zoom, which does allow you to zoom in and out.
The primary tradeoffs between prime and zoom lenses are:
Aperture - Typically, prime lenses tend to operate at wider maximum aperture than zooms. For instance, ...

Lenses with the aperture ring were originally designed for older SLR's which did not control aperture via the camera body.
Newer SLRs and DSLR control aperture via the body, so these older lenses must be stopped all the way down in order to be used. Your lens is working as it should, and is not defective.
To select aperture using your camera, ensure the ...

Yes. Prime lenses usually offer both superior image quality and larger apertures compared to zoom lenses of similar price. This is due to simpler mechanical construction, as less moving parts are needed, and due to especially chromatic aberration being easier to correct for just one focal length.
The decision between 35mm and 55-200mm is in the end about ...

At 50mm on your 18-55, the max aperture is f/5.6. On the 50mm f/1.8, the max aperture is - obviously - f/1.8. It is perhaps not immediately obvious, but f/1.8 lets in 10-12 times more light than f/5.6. That is the difference between shooting at 1/10 second shutter speed (which is absolutely a no-go for moving subjects) and shooting at 1/100 (which is a ...

Presumably because the people who buy their first DSLRs mostly come from the point-and-shoot world and care about the versatility afforded by the zoom more than about image quality. Also, a 50mm is way too long to be a good "default" lens with an APS-C camera, and good-quality ~30mm lenses are, due to certain quirks of optics, much more complex (and thus ...

The key to using prime lenses effectively is to use them enough that their field of view becomes instinctive to you, so that you can stand somewhere and know what the resulting image will look like, without even looking at the viewfinder. Then, rather than watching your camera, you watch the world, and when you see a photograph, you take it.
With a zoom ...

Here's the Thom Hogan review: http://bythom.com/Nikkor50AF-Slensreview.htm
His take is: yes, the f/1.4 is somewhat better, but not by a whole lot, so save your money unless you really do need the extra 2/3 stop. Consider boosting the ISO by a stop instead (and you should be ignoring the pixel-peepers and their 100% crop noise tests anyway).
Also note that ...

I tend to go for the prime before the flash, and here's why:
Flash adds weight and bulk to your camera. Once your 9 month old starts trying to grab the camera from your hands, better to have a lighter camera so that if/when s/he succeeds, they won't hurt themselves when they drop it. They also have less handholds of things they can pull apart.
Flash ...

Prime lenses with image stabilization do exist, and I believe they will become more popular with time.
One great example of the implementation is the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM. It provides 4 stop hybrid image stabilization, great for angular as well as shift movement.
A 50mm prime will not benefit nearly as much as a 50mm, especially when you start ...

A prime likely still has several advantages over a zoom at a given focal length. (Well, depending upon your needs and habits.)
A less complex optical design. All else being equal, a less complex design is likely to have fewer compromises, which means the prime is more likely to have less distortion of any sort -- pincushion, barrel, coma, and chromatic ...

As other commenters suggest, you're in for a world of hurt if you're the primary photographer with no experience. It's not really the equipment that's the problem (you can rent what you need and bill the couple), but rather the fact that wedding photography is hard and there are no do-overs.
I suggest you check out this article over at the LensRentals blog ...

A prime lens still has a moving focus element allowing you to change the focal plane through the range of the focusing ring's range. A prime is a lens that has a fixed focal length (100mm, 50mm etc) as opposed to a zoom which will allow you to cover a range of focal lengths (70mm-200mm for example).
A fixed focus lens cannot change its focal plane, but this ...

Provided you keep focus distance, ISO, aperture & shutter speed the same, and you zoom your 18-55mm lens to exactly the same focal length as the 50mm prime (which wont be exactly 50mm) then the images will very extremely similar when viewed as a whole.
On closer inspection you will see differences in the level of distortion, sharpness, contrast and ...

Fast (in terms of allowing light in)
Cheap (compared to most other lenses - hence good starter)
Portable (the 50mm is a tiny little beastie that doesn't add much to your SLR)
Sharp (the reduced number of elements and size means this lens is super sharp)
Bokeh (it's well recognised that because of the shallow DOF and the blades, that the 50mm produces ...